Asynchronous hybrid ARQ process indication in a MIMO wireless communication system

ABSTRACT

Methods and apparatus for transmitting Asynchronous Hybrid Automatic Repeat reQuest (ARQ) process identities in a wireless communication system. A linking scheme is established between at least two sets of process identities of two respective corresponding codewords. When a first process identity is selected from among a first set of process identities of a first codeword, a second process identity may be derived in dependence upon the first process identity and the established linking scheme. Finally, a first packet from the first codeword is transmitted using a first transmission channel indicated by the first process identity, and a second packet is transmitted from the second codeword using a second transmission channel indicated by the second process identity. In addition, a control message including only the first process identity is transmitted.

CLAIM OF PRIORITY

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/222,113 filed Aug. 1, 2008, entitled “ASYNCHRONOUS HYBRID ARQ PROCESS INDICATION IN A MIMO WIRELESS COMMUNICATION SYSTEM,” and claims priority to U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 60/960,700 filed Oct. 10, 2007. The content of the above-identified patent documents is hereby incorporated by reference.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to methods and apparatus for transmitting Asynchronous Hybrid Automatic Repeat request (ARQ) process identities in a wireless communication system.

2. Description of the Related Art

During data transmission, especially wireless data transmission, error inevitably occurs to decrease the quality of the transmitted data. Therefore, the data is retransmitted in order to correct the error.

Automatic Repeat-reQuest (ARQ) is an error control method for data transmission which makes use of acknowledgments and timeouts to achieve reliable data transmission. An acknowledgment is a message sent by the receiver to the transmitter to indicate that it has correctly received a data frame.

Usually, when the transmitter does not receive the acknowledgment before the timeout occurs (i.e. within a reasonable amount of time after sending the data frame), the transmitter retransmits the frame until the data within the frame is either correctly received or the error persists beyond a predetermined number of re-transmissions.

Hybrid ARQ (HARQ), is a variation of the ARQ error control method, which gives better performance than the ordinary ARQ scheme, particularly over wireless channels, at the cost of increased implementation complexity. One version HARQ is described in the IEEE 802.16e standard.

The HARQ protocol can be further classified into a synchronous HARQ protocol and an asynchronous HARQ protocol. In the synchronous HARQ protocol, the retransmissions happen at fixed time intervals and control information only needs to be transmitted along with a first subpacket transmission. The drawback of synchronous HARQ is that, however, the retransmission subpackets cannot be scheduled at preferable channel conditions because the timing of the retransmission is predetermined. Also, the modulation, coding and resource format cannot be adapted at the time of retransmission according to the prevailing channel conditions at the time of retransmission.

In the asynchronous HARQ protocol, the retransmission timing, modulation, coding and resource format can be adapted according to the prevailing channel and resource conditions at the time of retransmission. The control information, however, needs to be sent along with all the subpackets. The control information transmission along with each subpacket allows adjusting the transmission timing, modulation, coding and resources allocated.

In the third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Long Term Evolution (LTE) systems, a maximum of two codewords are used for transmission of two, three or four MIMO layers. In addition, an HARQ process identity is used to indicate the ID of the channel in an N-channel HARQ system. For example, a 3-bit process ID allows simultaneous operation on SAW channels.

When two subpackets from two respectively corresponding codewords are transmitted using the HARQ transmission scheme, the transmission rank may change from 2 to 1 at time of retransmission. If both subpacket used a process ID of 0 (PID=0) at the first transmission in rank-2, only a single codeword can be retransmitted in rank-1. This is because a single subpacket under a single PID can be retransmitted in rank-1. The second codeword transmission has to start from the beginning at a later time. This results in loss of the previously transmitted subpacket in rank-2.

When two subpackets from two respectively corresponding codewords are transmitted using the HARQ transmission scheme, the transmission rank may also change from 1 to 2 at time of retransmission. If a first subpacket uses a process ID of 0, while a second subpacket uses a process ID of 1 at the first transmission in rank-1, the two codewords are transmitted in rank-1 in two subframes because a single codeword can be transmitted in rank-1 in a given subframe. We note that the retransmissions for the two codewords can be performed in rank-2 because the two codewords are transmitted on different hybrid ARQ processes.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an improved method and apparatus for wireless communication.

It is another object of the present invention to provide an improved method and apparatus for efficiently transmitting Hybrid Automatic Repeat-reQuest (HARQ) process identities.

According to one aspect of the present invention, a linking scheme is established between at least two sets of process identities of two respective corresponding codewords. When a first process identity is selected from among a first set of process identities of a first codeword, a second process identity may be derived in dependence upon the first process identity and the established linking scheme. Finally, a first packet from the first codeword is transmitted using a first transmission channel indicated by the first process identity, and a second packet is transmitted from the second codeword using a second transmission channel indicated by the second process identity. In addition, a control message including only the first process identity is transmitted.

The control message may also include a codeword to layer mapping field indicating the mapping for the codewords to transmission layers.

The first packet and the second packet may be transmitted on different frequency subbands.

According to another aspect of the present invention, a linking scheme is established between a certain set of process identity fields and at least two sets of process identities of two respective corresponding codewords. When a process identity field is selected from among the certain set of process identity fields, a first process identity and a second process identity may be derived in dependence upon the selected process identity field and the established linking scheme. Finally, a first packet from the first codeword is transmitted using a first transmission channel indicated by the first process identity, and a second packet is transmitted from the second codeword using a second transmission channel indicated by the second process identity. In addition, a control message including the selected process identity field is transmitted.

According to still another aspect of the present invention, a linking scheme is established between a certain set of process identity fields, a certain set of differential process identities, and at least two sets of process identities of two respective corresponding codewords. Therefore, when a process identity field is selected from among the certain set of process identity fields, and a differential process identity is selected from among the certain set of differential process identities, a first process identity and a second process identity may be derived in dependence upon the selected process identity field, the selected differential process identity and the established linking scheme. Finally, a first packet from the first codeword is transmitted using a first transmission channel indicated by the first process identity, and a second packet is transmitted from the second codeword using a second transmission channel indicated by the second process identity. In addition, a control message including the selected process identity field and the selected differential process identity is transmitted.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

A more complete appreciation of the invention, and many of the attendant advantages thereof, will be readily apparent as the same becomes better understood by reference to the following detailed description when considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawings in which like reference symbols indicate the same or similar components, wherein:

FIG. 1 schematically illustrates an Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) transceiver chain;

FIG. 2 schematically illustrates a scheme for generating subpackets;

FIG. 3 schematically illustrates an example of Hybrid ARQ scheme in a wireless communication system;

FIG. 4 schematically illustrates a synchronous Hybrid ARQ scheme;

FIG. 5 schematically illustrates an asynchronous Hybrid ARQ scheme;

FIG. 6 schematically illustrates a Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) transceiver chain;

FIG. 7 schematically illustrates a Single-code word MIMO scheme;

FIG. 8 schematically illustrates a Multi-code word MIMO scheme;

FIG. 9 schematically illustrates Multi-code word MIMO scheme for 2-layers transmission in the 3GPP LTE system;

FIG. 10 schematically illustrates Multi-code word MIMO scheme for 3-layers transmission in the 3GPP LTE system;

FIG. 11 schematically illustrates Multi-code word. MIMO scheme for 4-layers transmission in the 3GPP LTE system;

FIG. 12 schematically illustrates an 8-channel Asynchronous Hybrid ARQ scheme;

FIG. 13 schematically illustrates an example of subpackets from two codewords;

FIG. 14 schematically illustrates an example of HARQ retransmission when rank changes from 2 to 1 at the time of retransmissions;

FIG. 15 schematically illustrates an example of HARQ retransmission when rank changes from 1 to 2 at time of retransmissions

FIG. 16 schematically illustrates an example of HARQ retransmissions for the case when rank changes from 2 to 1 at time of retransmissions as a first embodiment according to the principles of the present invention;

FIG. 17 schematically illustrates an example of HARQ retransmissions for the case when rank changes from 1 to 2 at time of retransmissions as a second embodiment according to the principles of the present invention;

FIG. 18 schematically illustrates an example of HARQ retransmissions for the case when rank changes from 1 to 2 at time of retransmissions as a third embodiment according to the principles of the present invention;

FIG. 19 schematically illustrates an example of HARQ retransmissions for the case when rank changes from 1 to 2 at time of retransmissions as another embodiment according to the principles of the present invention;

FIG. 20 schematically illustrates an example of HARQ retransmissions for the case when rank changes between rank-1 and rank-2 as still another embodiment according to the principles of the present invention; and

FIG. 21 schematically illustrates an example of HARQ retransmissions on different MIMO layers and different OFDM subbands when MIMO rank changes between rank-1 and rank-2 as a further embodiment according to the principles of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

FIG. 1 illustrates an Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) transceiver chain. In a communication system using OFDM technology, at transmitter chain 110, control signals or data 111 is modulated by modulator 112 and is serial-to-parallel converted by Serial/Parallel (S/P) converter 113. Inverse Fast Fourier Transform (IFFT) unit 114 is used to transfer the signal from frequency domain to time domain. Cyclic prefix (CP) or zero prefix (ZP) is added to each OFDM symbol by CP insertion unit 116 to avoid or mitigate the impact due to multipath fading. Consequently, the signal is transmitted by transmitter (Tx) front end processing unit 117, such as an antenna (not shown), or alternatively, by fixed wire or cable. At receiver chain 120, assuming perfect time and frequency synchronization are achieved, the signal received by receiver (Rx) front end processing unit 121 is processed by CP removal unit 122. Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) unit 124 transfers the received signal from time domain to frequency domain for further processing.

The total bandwidth in an OFDM system is divided into narrowband frequency units called subcarriers. The number of subcarriers is equal to the FFT/IFFT size N used in the system. In general, the number of subcarriers used for data is less than N because some subcarriers at the edge of the frequency spectrum are reserved as guard subcarriers. In general, no information is transmitted on guard subcarriers.

Hybrid Automatic Repeat request (ARQ) is a retransmission scheme whereby a transmitter sends redundant coded information (i.e., subpackets) in small increments. As shown in FIG. 5, in transmitter 130, an information packet P is first input into channel coder 131 to perform channel coding. The resulted coded bit stream is input into subpacket generator 132 to break into smaller units, i.e., subpackets SP1, SP2, SP3 and SP4. The hybrid ARQ retransmissions can either contain redundant symbols or coded bits which are different than the previous transmission(s) or copies of the same symbols or coded bits. The scheme which retransmits copies of the same information is referred to as chase combining. In case of Chase combining, the subpackets SP1, SP2, SP3 and SP4 as shown in FIG. 4 are all identical. The scheme where retransmitted symbols or coded bits are different than the previous transmission is generally referred to as an incremental redundancy scheme.

An example of Hybrid ARQ protocol is shown in FIG. 3. After receiving the first subpacket SP1 from transmitter 130, receiver 140 tries to decode the received information packet. In case of unsuccessful decoding, receiver 140 stores SP1 and sends a Negative Acknowledgement (NACK) signal to transmitter 130. After receiving the NACK signal, transmitter 130 transmits the second subpacket SP2. After receiving the second subpacket SP2, receiver 140 combines SP2 with the previously received subpacket SP1, and tries to jointly decode the combined information packet. At any point, if the information packet is successfully decoded by indication of a successful Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) check, for example, receiver 140 sends an ACK signal to transmitter 130. In the example of FIG. 3, the information packet is successfully decoded after receiving and combining three subpackets, SP1, SP2 and SP3. The ARQ protocol shown in FIG. 3 is generally referred to as stop-and-wait protocol because the transmitter waits for the ACK/NACK signal before sending the next subpacket. After receiving the ACK signal, the transmitter can move on to transmit a new information packet to the same or a different user.

An example of N-channel stop-and-wait (SAW) synchronous Hybrid ARQ (HARQ) protocol is shown in FIG. 4. In the example of FIG. 4, N is assumed to equal to 4. In case of a synchronous HARQ protocol, the retransmissions happen at fixed time intervals. With N=4, if the first subpacket is transmitted in time slot 1, the retransmissions of the first subpacket can only happen in slots 5, 9 and 13. The number of processes is determined by the time required for ACK/NACK feedback. When the transmitter is waiting for feedback on one HARQ process, the transmitter can transmit another data packet, such as a second subpacket. In case of N-channel stop-and-wait (SAW), N parallel information packets can be transmitted via N SAW channels, with each of the N SAW channels carrying one packet. One of the benefits of the synchronous HARQ protocol is that the control information only needs to be transmitted along with the first subpacket transmission because the timing of the retransmissions is predetermined. The drawback of synchronous HARQ, however, is that the retransmission subpackets cannot be scheduled at preferable channel conditions because the timing of the retransmission is predetermined. Also, the modulation, coding and resource format cannot be adapted at the time of retransmission according to the prevailing channel conditions at the time of retransmission.

An example of N-channel stop-and-wait (SAW) asynchronous Hybrid ARQ (HARQ) protocol is shown in FIG. 5. In case of asynchronous HARQ, the retransmission timing, modulation, coding and resource format can be adapted according to the prevailing channel and resource conditions at the time of retransmission. The control information, however, needs to be sent along with all the subpackets as shown in FIG. 5. The control information transmission along with each subpacket allows adjusting the transmission timing, modulation, coding and resources allocated.

Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) schemes use multiple transmission antennas and multiple receive antennas to improve the capacity and reliability of a wireless communication channel. A MIMO system promises linear increase in capacity with K where K is the minimum of number of transmit (M) and receive antennas (N), i.e. K=min(M,N). A simplified example of a 4×4 MIMO system is shown in FIG. 6. In this example, four different data streams are transmitted separately from four transmission antennas. The transmitted signals are received at four receive antennas. Some form of spatial signal processing is performed on the received signals in order to recover the four data streams. An example of spatial signal processing is vertical Bell Laboratories Layered Space-Time (V-BLAST) which uses the successive interference cancellation principle to recover the transmitted data streams. Other variants of MIMO schemes include schemes that perform some kind of space-time coding across the transmission antennas (e.g., diagonal Bell Laboratories Layered Space-Time (D-BLAST)) and also beamforming schemes such as Spatial Division multiple Access (SDMA).

An example of single-code word MIMO scheme is given in FIG. 3. In case of single-code word MIMO transmission, a cyclic redundancy check (CRC) is added to a single information block and then coding, for example, using turbo codes and low-density parity check (LDPC) code, and modulation, for example, by quadrature phase-shift keying (QPSK) modulation scheme, are performed. The coded and modulated symbols are then demultiplexed for transmission over multiple antennas.

In case of multiple codeword MIMO transmission, shown in FIG. 4, the information block is de-multiplexed into smaller information blocks. Individual CRCs are attached to these smaller information blocks and then separate coding and modulation is performed on these smaller blocks. After modulation, these smaller blocks are respectively demultiplexed into even smaller blocks and then transmitted through corresponding antennas. It should be noted that in case of multi-code word MIMO transmissions, different modulation and coding can be used on each of the individual streams, and thus resulting in a so-called Per Antenna Rate Control (PARC) scheme. Also, multi-code word transmission allows for more efficient post-decoding interference cancellation because a CRC check can be performed on each of the code words before the code word is cancelled from the overall signal. In this way, only correctly received code words are cancelled, and thus avoiding any interference propagation in the cancellation process.

In the third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Long Term Evolution (LTE) systems, a maximum of two codewords are used for transmission of two, three or four MIMO layers. As shown in FIG. 9, for rank-2 or two layers transmission, codeword-1 (CW1) is transmitted from Layer-0 while CW2 is transmitted from Layer-1. For rank-3 or three layers transmission as shown in FIG. 10, codeword-1 (CW1) is transmitted from Layer-0 while CW2 is transmitted from Layer-1 and Layer-2. For rank-4 or four layers transmission as shown in FIG. 11, codeword-1 (CW1) is transmitted from Layer-0 and Layer-1 while CW2 is transmitted from Layer-2 and Layer-3.

In the 3GPP LTE system, a 3-bit HARQ process identity (ID) is used. The process ID refers to the ID of the channel in the N-channel stop-and-wait HARQ. The 3-bit process ID allows simultaneous operation on eight SAW channels. In the example of FIG. 12, the initial subpacket SP1 is transmitted in subframe #0 on process with process ID 0 (PID=0). The retransmissions SP2 and SP3 are performed in subframe #7 and subnframe #15. With 8 HARQ processes, the minimum time between retransmissions is 8 subframes.

An example of subpackets from two codewords is shown in FIG. 13. We assume that each codeword consists of four subpackets. The subpackets are referred as redundancy versions (RV) in the context of circular buffer rate matching used in the 3GPP LTE system. The subpackets or RVs are transmitted in response to ACK/NACK feedback from the receiver.

An example of HARQ retransmission of the two codewords shown in FIG. 13 when rank changes from 2 to 1 at time of retransmissions is shown in FIG. 14. We assume that the transmission of the subpackets from both codewords fails on first attempt. As the rank changes to 1 at time of subpacket retransmission, only a single codeword can be retransmitted in rank-1. This is because both subpackets used the same process number that is process ID 0 (PID=0) and a single subpacket under a single PID can be retransmitted in rank-1. The second codeword transmission has to start from the beginning by transmission of subpacket SP21 at a later time. This results in loss of the previously transmitted subpacket SP21 in rank-2.

The possible Hybrid ARQ feedback message formats are listed in Table 1.

TABLE 1 Hybrid ARQ ACK/NACK feedback HARQ Feedback CW1 CW2 ACK(0) Negatively acknowledged NA ACK(1) Positively acknowledged NA ACK(0,0) Negatively acknowledged Negatively acknowledged ACK(0,1) Negatively acknowledged Positively acknowledged ACK(1,0) Positively acknowledged Negatively acknowledged ACK(1,1) Positively acknowledged Positively acknowledged

An example of HARQ retransmission when rank changes from 1 to 2 at time of retransmissions is shown in FIG. 15. Two codewords are transmitted in rank-1 in two subframes because a single codeword can be transmitted in rank-1 in a given subframe. We assume that both the codewords requires retransmission. We further assume that the MIMO rank changes to a rank greater than 1 enabling transmission of two codewords. We note that the retransmissions for the two codewords cannot be performed in rank-2 because the two codewords need to be transmitted on different hybrid ARQ processes.

In the current invention, we disclose a scheme that allows scheduling retransmissions when rank changes at the time of retransmissions.

In a first embodiment according to the principles of the current invention, in a rank-2 transmission, the process ID of the second CW is linked to the process ID of the first codeword. This requires indication of only CW1 PID in the control message during the rank-2 transmission while PID for CW2 is derived from CW1 as shown in Table 2. This scheme allows for HARQ retransmissions when the MIMO rank changes from 2 to 1 as shown in FIG. 16. As shown in FIG. 16, the first transmission is a rank-2 transmission. In the first transmission, the PID1 for CW1 is explicitly transmitted, while the PID2 for CW2 is derived from the PID1 based on Table 2. In the second transmission (retransmission), the rank changed from rank-2 to rank-1. In this rank-1 transmission, there is no link between PID1 for CW1 and PID2 for CW2, and therefore both of the PID1 and PID2 are explicitly transmitted in rank-1. Table 2 is only for rank-2 transmission, instead of rank-1 transmission. Note the number of available process indications in rank-1 is sixteen (16), while the number of available process indications in rank-2 is eight (8). This HARQ retransmission requires that, however, the PID field in rank-1 is 1-bit longer than the PID field in rank-2. For example, if 3-bits PID representing CW1 PIDs from 0 to 7 (with CW2 PIDs 8-15 implicitly derived) is used in rank-2, then a 4-bit PID representing PIDs from 0-15 is required in rank1.

In the example of FIG. 16, subpackets from four codewords are transmitted in two subframes with rank-2 (allows two simultaneous codeword transmission). Note that in FIG. 16, the linking scheme between PID3 for CW3 and PID4 for CW4 is the same as the linking scheme between PID1 and PID2. We assume that all the four codewords are negatively acknowledged and requires HARQ retransmissions. Meanwhile, the rank changes to 1 and therefore the subsequent subpackets from the four codewords are transmitted in four subframes with one subpacket transmitted in each subframe. The subpackets can be retransmitted in rank-1 with one subpacket per subframe because the number of hybrid ARQ process IDs (PIDs) is 2 times more in rank-1 than in rank-2 (16 PIDs in rank-1 versus 8 PIDs in rank-2). The principles of the current invention can be extended to the case when more than two codewords are transmitted simultaneously using multi-codeword MIMO. For example, when the number of MIMO codewords is four, a 3-bit process ID can be used for the four codewords transmission in, rank-4, and the subpackets for these 4 codewords can be transmitted in rank-1 by providing 4 times more PIDs (5-bits PIDS in rank-1), because there are totally thirty-two (32) channels in the HARQ scheme for the four codewords. Similarly, when 4 codewords are transmitted in rank-2 with 2 codewords simultaneously transmitted, the PID size in rank-2 can be 4-bits. In the case of rank-2 transmission, there are two linking schemes for two pairs of codewords. For example, there is a first linking scheme between PID1 and PID2, and there is a second linking scheme between PID3 and PID4.

TABLE 2 A scheme linking CW2 PID with CW1 PID PID field CW1 process ID CW2 process ID 000 0 8 001 1 9 010 2 10 011 3 11 100 4 12 101 5 13 110 6 14 111 7 15

In Table 2, the process ID for CW2 (PID2) is linked to the process ID for CW1 (PID1) as below: PID2=PID1+8  (1)

Other functions for Hybrid ARQ PID linking between CW1 and CW2 can also be used. Another example is shown in Table 3 below where CW2 process ID (PID2) is linked to PID1 as below: PID2=16−PID1  (2)

TABLE 3 A scheme linking CW2 PID with CW1 PID PID field CW1 process ID CW2 process ID 000 0 15 001 1 14 010 2 13 011 3 12 100 4 11 101 5 10 110 6 9 111 7 8

In a second embodiment according to the principles of the present invention, an example of HARQ retransmissions according to the principles of the current invention for the case when rank changes from 1 to 2 at time of retransmissions is shown in FIG. 17. The process IDs use is assumed to be according to Table 3. We assume four subpackets from four different transport blocks (codewords) are transmitted in rank-1. At the time of retransmission when rank changes to 2, the subpackets transmitted on PID #7 and PID #8 can be scheduled together in rank-2 as allowed by the mapping in Table 3. The subpackets originally transmitted on PID #5 and PID #6 cannot, however, be scheduled together because this combination is not allowed by mapping in Table 3. Note that two process indications in the same row in Table 3 is an allowed combination.

In a third embodiment according to the principles of the present invention, the process IDs for CW1 and CW2 are derived from a single 3-bit field as in Table 4. CW1 uses odd numbers PIDs while CW2 uses even numbered PIDs. This scheme allows simultaneous scheduling of two subpackets retransmissions from rank-1 to rank-2, when the PIDs of the two subpackets are in the same row in Table 4. As shown in FIG. 18, PID1 for CW1 (SP11) is 4, and PID2 for CW2 (SP21) is 5. PID #4 and PID #5 are in the same row in Table 4, and hence the retransmissions of the respective corresponding codewords, CW1 and CW2, can be scheduled together when the rank changes from 1 to 2. This scheme does not allow, however, retransmission of subpackets on process IDs when the process IDs are not in the same row. For example, PID #4 and PID #5 are not in the same row in Table 3, and hence subpackets on PID #4 and PID #5 cannot be retransmitted together in rank-2.

TABLE 4 CW1 and CW2 PIDs with a single 3-bit PID field PID field CW1 process ID CW2 process ID 000 0 1 001 2 3 010 4 5 011 6 7 100 8 9 101 10 11 110 12 13 111 14 15

In a fourth embodiment according to the principles of the present invention, a full PID field and a differential process ID (DPID) field is used for two codewords transmission. An example with a 1-bit DPID field linking CW2 PID with CW1 PID is shown in Table 5. When the DPID field is set to ‘0’, CW1 PIDs are even numbered while CW2 PIDs are odd numbered, as given by the following relationship: PID2=(PID1+1) mod 16, when DPID=‘0’  (3) When DPID field is set to ‘1’, both CW1 and CW2 PIDs are even numbered. However, PIDs for CW2 are shifted by 2, as given by the following relationship: PID2=(PID1+2) mod 16, when DPID=‘1’  (4)

This principle can be further extended by using more than 1-bit for the DPID filed. For example, with 2-bit DPID field, the CW1 and CW2 PIDs can be linked as below: PID2=(PID1+1) mod 16, when DPID=‘00’  (5) PID2=(PID1+5) mod 16, when DPID=‘01’  (6) PID2=(PID1+9) mod 16, when DPID=‘10’  (7) PID2=(PID1+13) mod 16, when DPID=‘11’  (8)

The larger the DPID field, more flexibility is allowed in hybrid ARQ retransmissions when the MIMO rank changes between original transmission and retransmissions.

TABLE 5 CW1 and CW2 PIDs linking by using a single-bit DPID CW2 process ID CW2 process ID PID field CW1 process ID (DPID = ‘0’) (DPID = ‘1’) 000 0 1 2 001 2 3 4 010 4 5 6 011 6 7 8 100 8 9 10 101 10 11 12 110 12 13 14 111 14 15 0

In a fifth embodiment according to the principles of the present invention, a 3-bit process ID is used for two codewords transmissions (rank-2 or greater) and a 4-bit process ID is used for one codeword transmission (rank-1). An extra codeword to layer mapping (CLM) bit, however, is used for two codewords transmission. When this bit is set, the bit flips the mapping of codewords to layers as shown in FIG. 19. When CLM bit is set to ‘0’, PID #6 and PID #7, for example, goes on Layer-1 (CW1) and Layer-2 (CW2) respectively according to Table 4. On the other hand when the CLM bit is set to ‘1’, PID #6 and PID #7 goes on Layer-2 (CW2) and Layer-1 (CW1) respectively as shown in FIG. 19. In this way, the total number of bits is the same between single codeword and two codewords transmission, that is 4-bits process ID for rank-1 and 3-bits process ID+1-bit CLM indication for rank-2 and greater.

In a sixth embodiment according to the principles of the present invention, two 4-bits process IDs (total of 8-bits) are used for two codewords transmission while a single 4-bit process ID is used for a single codeword transmission as given in Table 6. This scheme allows for full flexibility in scheduling and pairing subpackets at retransmissions when rank changes such that at sometimes only a single codeword is transmitted while at other times two codewords can be transmitted. We illustrate this flexibility by considering the example shown in FIG. 20. We assume that the four subpackets transmitted in rank-2 need retransmissions in rank-1. Since a 4-bit ND is available in rank-1, the four codewords can be transmitted in four subframes with each codewords needs its now PID. The subpacket on processes with IDs 0 and 3 fail again and are retransmitted in rank-2 again. Since each codeword has its own 4-bit process ID, the subpackets from these two codewords can be scheduled together in rank-2.

TABLE 6 CW1 and CW2 PIDs with 4-bits PID fields Rank-1 Rank-2 Total bits = 4 Total bits = 8 CW1 process IDs CW1 process IDs CW2 process IDs 4-bits indicate PIDs 4-bits indicate PIDs 4-bits indicate PIDs from 0-15 from 0-15 from 0-15

In a seventh embodiment according to the principles of the present invention shown in FIG. 21, the retransmissions form the two codewords transmitted on different layers can be scheduled on different frequency subbands in OFDM. Initially four subpackets are transmitted on two layers and two subframes in rank-2. The two of the four subpackets fail and are retransmitted on a single layer in rank-1 on two OFDM subbands. A subband consists of multiple OFDM subcarriers in a single subframe. Two new subpackets, SP51 and SP61 are scheduled on two subbands on PIDs 0 and 9 respectively. The retransmission for SP32 and SP61 on PIDs 3 and 9 respectively are then retransmitted on two layers in rank-2 in a single subframe. By allowing retransmissions in frequency-domain, two subpackets can be scheduled simultaneously in a single subframe, thus speeding up the retransmissions and lowering the packet transmissions delays. It is also possible to initiate transmission of two subpackets on different subbands as is the case for subpackets SP51 and SP61 scheduled on PIDs 0 and 9 respectively. The same ACK/NACK feedback structure as for 2 codeword rank-2 transmission given in Table 1 can be used when two subpackets are scheduled on different subbands. In both cases, a 2-bit ACK/NACK for the two codewords is needed.

The above embodiments of the principles of the present invention, i.e., the methods of transmitting process indications are only application to asynchronous HARQ transmissions when rank changes between original transmission and retransmissions.

While the invention has been shown and described in connection with the preferred embodiments, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that modifications and variations can be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims. 

What is claimed is:
 1. A method for communication in a wireless network, the method comprising: receiving, at a wireless terminal, modulated symbols for each of at least two transport blocks mapped into corresponding layers according to transport block to layer mapping information and a swap flag; receiving, at the wireless terminal, control information related to the modulated symbols, the control information comprising modulation information, resource allocation information, a number of layers, and the swap flag; and decoding, at the wireless terminal, the modulated symbols using the control information.
 2. A method in a wireless communication device for communication in a wireless network, the method comprising: encoding bits in at least two transport blocks; modulating the encoded bits to generate modulated symbols; mapping the modulated symbols in each of the at least two transport blocks into corresponding layers according to transport block to layer mapping information and a swap flag; and transmitting, at the transmitter, the modulated symbols over the mapped layers and control information related to the modulated symbols, the control information comprising modulation information, resources allocation information, a number of layers, and the swap flag.
 3. The method of claim 2, wherein the transport block to layer mapping information indicates for two layers transmission a first transport block is mapped to a first layer while a second transport block is mapped to a second layer, for three layers transmission a first transport block is mapped to a first layer while a second transport block is mapped to a second layer and a third layer, and for four layers transmission first transport block is mapped to a first and a second layer while a second transport block is mapped to a third layer and a forth layer.
 4. The method of claim 3, wherein the swap flag indicates that a mapping relationship between transport blocks and layers should be swapped.
 5. The method of claim 2, wherein the number of layers allows a determination, based on transport block to layer mapping information, of a mapping relationship between transport blocks and layers.
 6. The method of claim 5, wherein the swap flag indicates that the mapping relationship between transport blocks and layers should be swapped.
 7. The method of claim 2, wherein the control information further comprises a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) process identity.
 8. The method of claim 2, further comprising: changing the number of layers during retransmission.
 9. A method in a wireless communication device for communication in a wireless network, the method comprising: receiving, by a receiver, modulated symbols and control information; acquiring modulation information, resources allocation information, a number of layers, and a swap flag from the control information; spatial processing the received modulated symbols by mapping the modulated symbols in each layer into corresponding transport blocks based on the transport block to layer mapping information and the swap flag; and demodulating and decoding the spatial processed modulated symbols according to the modulation information.
 10. The method of claim 9, wherein the transport block to layer mapping information indicates that for two layers transmission a first transport block is mapped to a first layer while a second transport block is mapped to a second layer, for three layers transmission a first transport block is mapped to a first layer while a second transport block is mapped to a second layer and a third layer, and for four layers transmission first transport block is mapped to a first and a second layer while a second transport block is mapped to a third layer and a forth layer.
 11. The method of claim 10, wherein the swap flag indicates that a mapping relationship between transport blocks and layers should be swapped.
 12. The method of claim 9, wherein the number of layers allows a determination, based on transport block to layer mapping information, of a mapping relationship between transport blocks and layers.
 13. The method of claim 12, wherein the swap flag indicates the mapping relationship between transport blocks and layers should be swapped.
 14. The method of claim 9, wherein the control information further comprises a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) process identity.
 15. The method of claim 9, further comprising: changing the number of layer during retransmission. 